# What makes a city a city? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 15, 2000, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-city-a-city/45648 "2000-12-15T00:05:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![trabi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecae2f/32.png) [@trabi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trabi)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-city-a-city/45648/41 "2004-03-05T13:59:38Z")
> [@kabbes](#): > > To expand on this: strictly speaking in Britain there are no pre-requisites to being a city, nothing which guarantees you city status and no way to stop being a city once you are one. This last point means that there are cities dating from Roman times knocking about with 100,000 people or fewer. > > “They” are planning to inaugurate another city for the new millenium. Many towns (including Reading and, bizarrely, Croydon) have put their names into the hat. Amusingly Swindon has been told that it can’t have city status because it is too brash (or something like that). We’ll have to wait and see who wins the coveted approval. > > pan I was always told that to be cities had to have a cathedral, with the exception of Cambrige, for some reason connected with the university there. According to [wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_the_United_Kingdom) this is no longer the case, but still a fairly good rule of thumb… > [@](#): > > In the UK, city status is not automatically granted to a community meeting any particular criteria. It can only be obtained by receiving a Royal Charter. However some British cities which predate the historical monarchy have been regarded as cities since “time immemorial”. > > Until the 1880s, a town was usually granted city status if and only if it had a diocesan cathedral within its limits. Nowdays the government holds competitions for city status, with towns submitting applications to the Lord Chancellor, who makes recomendations to the sovereign. These are usually held to mark special events, such as coronations or royal jubilees. And (from the same source) one of the - relatively dubious - benefits of being a city: > [@](#): > > Some cities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have the further distinction of having a Lord Mayor (as opposed to a Mayor). In Scotland the equivalent are Lord Provosts. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-city-a-city/45648/42 "2004-03-05T15:51:55Z")
> [@AWB](#): > > In Virginia, if an area incorporates as a city, it is independent of any county; it is basically “divorced” from the county from which it came. It can then set up its own city council and pass its own laws. > > However, the county then provides no services for that area: police, trash, etc. That’s supposed to be the case, but there are a lot of concessions to practicality. Fairfax County’s seat of government is in the City of Fairfax, and the two entities share a lot of services. Ditto for Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville. And dozens of others where I _haven’t_ lived. To muddy the waters further, the city of Alexandria shares a name with a huge chunk of unincorporated Fairfax County; people who I would say are rightly from Groveton or Hybla Valley have “Alexandria” on their driver’s license. I grew up in Reston, which (in the 70s) was organized as a “place” instead of a town. Oh, the possibilities. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-city-a-city/45648/43 "2004-03-05T16:10:15Z")
> [@](#): > > the city of Alexandria shares a name with a huge chunk of unincorporated Fairfax County; people who I would say are rightly from Groveton or Hybla Valley have “Alexandria” on their driver’s license. Now you’re talking postal addresses – that’s a completely different thing. The “city, state” assigned by the U.S. Postal Service need bear no relation to actual jurisdictions created under state law. ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-city-a-city/45648/44 "2004-03-05T16:43:40Z")
" I grew up in Reston, which (in the 70s) was organized as a “place” instead of a town." No mystery there - Reston started out as simply a Planned Unit Development (PUD), it was never intended to be a separate political subdivision of the Commonwealth. Reston is just a neighborhood - a very big neighborhood, but just a neighborhood. As was pointed out, postal addresses have nothing to do with political subdivisions. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-city-a-city/45648/45 "2004-03-05T16:44:43Z")
> [@plnnr](#): > > As to how a County becomes a City, what happens is that the County is granted a charter by the GA and incorporates as a City, it doesn’t “leave” the County - the County “becomes” the City. You may be correct that Princess Anne County became the City of Virginia Beach, but not all cities in VA are former counties – indeed, most of them aren’t. As noted, there is a City of Fairfax which is surrounded by Fairfax County, but has not been _part_ of the county since granted its municipal charter. The City of Alexandria is also mostly surrounded by Fairfax County, but not a part of it. As to **Krokodil** ’s point that cities and counties often share services (both in Virginia and elsewhere), that’s certainly correct, but the city has a _legal_ responsibility to provide those services – if it uses the county’s, it’s because there’s a contract between the two municipalities and the city provides services to its residents by hiring the county, essentially as a vendor. My (admittedly shaky) understanding is that this is the distinction in Virginia between cities and towns – cities are required to provide their own services (although as noted, can sometimes do so by contracting with another municipality) while towns, which unlike citites are not legally separate from the county in which they lie, can pick and choose which services they wish to provide and which they’ll leave to the county (which then gets a cut of the tax revenue, of course). IIRC, cities in VA must be over 5,000 people (and towns over 1,000) when they’re chartered. _However_, if a chartered municipality loses its population, it doesn’t automatically lose its municipal character, so you could have a city that’s smaller than 5,000 as long as it was big enough in the past, when the charter was granted. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-city-a-city/45648/46 "2004-03-05T17:22:19Z")
You’re exactly right, not all cities in VA were formerly counties - Virginia Beach and Suffolk are just the most recent examples of where that happened (it doesn’t happen very frequently). Norfolk County and the City of South Norfolk consolidated and became the City of Chesapeake as another hybrid example. More infrequently are examples of cities giving up their charters and reverting to town status - I think the City of South Boston was the last one to revert and that was back in 1995 (IIRC). They did it for just the reason you suggest - more efficient use of tax revenue. The City of Winchester (Frederick County) and the City of Charlottesville (Albermarle County) both considered reversion but nothing ever came of it. According to the Code of VA (Sect. 15.1-792) (which as since been recodifed to Section 15.2-something - I dont 'have my re-codfication handy), the minimum population for a city is 5,000, the minimum population for a town is 1,000. ---
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-city-a-city/45648/47 "2004-03-05T23:13:29Z")
Here in SC we have another political (governmental) entity called a “public service district.” It is an arm of the county that provides certain services to the unincorporated areas, such as fire protection, sewerage, garbage pick-up, etc. That part of James Island which was not annexed by the city of Charleston (and is now, at least provisionally, a town), would have to provide now for its own services. However, the James Island Public Service District has agreed to provide the same services – for a fee, of course. The County of Charleston has several public service districts: St. Andrews PSD, James Island PSD, etc., which service unincorporated areas of the county. As a side note, I voted against incorporating and I hope that it is ruled illegal. Those who voted in favor often cited less expenses and the increased taxes they’d pay if the City annexed the land. Short-sighted. Now, we have to pay all the expenses that were being provided free, in addition to the salaries of the mayor, council members, etc. (It was proposed, even, that the Mayor’s annual salary be increased to $65,000, a fantastic figure for a small town. She (the mayor) voted in favor of that, but they settled for $30,000. I can see no way we can become financially better off. And it troubles me that the Mayor would vote in favor of such a large salary increase, which is way out of proportion to what other mayors in small towns around here earn. Most of the other mayors have full-time jobs, in addition to being mayor, and perform that service as a public service. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2004, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-city-a-city/45648/48 "2004-03-06T03:15:40Z")
> [@trabi](#): > > I was always told that to be cities had to have a cathedral, with the exception of Cambrige, for some reason connected with the university there. I thought that too, but now a couple of towns in Northern Ireland are looking to become cities, doesn’t the Queen award them city status every few years? The new cities were once very un-remarkable towns too with fairly town-like populations. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2004, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-city-a-city/45648/49 "2004-03-06T03:22:11Z")
DAMN! Finally an interesting question I can answer (for UK cities at least), by an ADMINISTRATOR no less, and it’s already been answered. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2004, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-city-a-city/45648/50 "2004-03-06T03:23:42Z")
> [@Lobsang](#): > > DAMN! Finally an interesting question I can answer (for UK cities at least), by an ADMINISTRATOR no less, and it’s already been answered. And I wasted my 6000th post on that. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2004, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-city-a-city/45648/51 "2004-03-06T04:27:27Z")
I’ll try to answer for the archaeological definition: my professors in college, as I recall, defined a city as a settlement with a complex division of labor among its inhabitants and a recognizable class structure, as I recall. The closest thing I can find online for this is this passage: > [@](#): > > Finally, the archeologist and anthropologist Robert M. Adams argued for a definition of civilization as a society with functionally interrelated sets of social institutions: class stratification based on the ownership and control of production, political and religious hierarchies complementing each other in the central administration of territorially organized states and lastly, a complex division of labor, with skilled workers, soldiers and officials existing alongside the great mass of peasant producers. I realize the above is a more general definition of civilization, but civilization and cities go together like pancakes and syrup. From [The History Guide: What is Civilization?](http://www.historyguide.org/ancient/lecture1b.html) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-a-city-a-city/45648.md?page=2)